


I’m Not Giving Up (I’m Just Giving In.)

by C0c0plumb (cocoplumb)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Crying, Deathfic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-16
Updated: 2012-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-03 03:05:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cocoplumb/pseuds/C0c0plumb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is sick and doesn’t have much time left. Dean and Castiel take care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'm Not Giving Up

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of a death!fic, kind of not...
> 
> Re-Upload from LJ.

You cling onto him because you’re cold to the bone. Dean’s chest is warm and you bury yourself into the folds of his clothing to remind yourself what a heart should beat like. His is steady and sort of sings a beautiful song. Yours is jittery and slow and fast and it aches and feels numb all at once.

It hurts but you know it’s nothing new. It’s hurt for some time, longer than Dean thinks because you didn’t tell him right away, or a long while after either. You didn’t tell him because it makes him sad to know you’re sick, it breaks his heart to know you’re dying, it kills him that he can’t fix it or find anyone that can. Dean still tried though, still tried to find someone, find anyone. They all said the same thing, it was your time.

“Sammy, talking? Yes or no?”

Tears sting in your eyes at the pain that erupts from your skull and the vibrations of his chest make you shiver and you squeeze his hand twice, no.

Dean wants to whisper something comforting, something like, “It’ll be okay Sammy, ssh, it’s okay, I’m here, I gotcha.” You see tears come to his eyes too because he can’t say any of that because it just might kill you today.

So Dean just strokes your hair in that impossibly light fashion because you almost can’t feel it and it doesn’t hurt. You press deeper into his chest and listen to his hearts never ending song and Dean kisses you in a way he never would if you weren’t dying.

 

* * *

  
   
Today you don’t feel cold but Dean still lets you hold him. He actually insists, like you might slip away sooner otherwise.

He tells you to open your mouth and he feeds you morphine from a brown jar. Two mouthfuls is what you get today, because although you don’t tell him, he knows it’s starting to hurt in a way that makes you forget any other time when you weren’t in pain.

A flutter of wind gets your attention and you look to the corner of the room.

“Dean.” The voice is deep and it's strange to hear because Dean never spoke like that anymore.

You don’t actually hear Dean cuss, but you know he did. You look up at him and tell him its okay, its okay to speak today.

“What do you want Cas?” Dean asks, he’s angry and you’re not exactly sure why.

“You called me,” Cas says, and you smile because it’s nice to know Dean will still have someone after you’re gone. Someone to rely on, someone that will always come. He might be a little late, but he’ll come.

“No I didn’t,” Dean says stubbornly and if your eyes weren’t swimming and it didn’t make you so dizzy you threw up all over him, you’d roll your eyes.

“Not you. Sam,” Cas corrects him and you sort of smirk.

“Sam can’t speak,” Dean says, still angry and it makes your chest hurt more than it does already. You want more morphine but you know you can’t have any just yet. You know it probably wouldn’t help with this pain anyway.

“He still speaks in his mind. He called me so I came.”

“Since when can you read minds?” Dean asks, cocky and skeptical. You want to give him a punch in the arm and tell him to be nice to his friend, but like he said, you can’t speak. At first it just hurt so you stopped. Now you can’t at all, not because it still hurts, but because…just because.

“I haven’t developed any new abilities. But I have always been able to hear a person’s prayers.”

Dean looks down at you and he gives you a look you haven’t seen in a long time. “You praying again, Sammy?” he asks and he sounds proud.

You squeeze his hand once, yes.

He smiles at you again and you tug his shirt collar and get his attention back to Cas.

“What do you want him for? We tried him, remember?”

You let out a tiny tiny sigh. You look at Cas and send him a pleading look. But he doesn’t understand your looks like Dean does, doesn’t understand the slightest change in the corner of your eye. Cas just looks at you confused.

You don’t exactly pray again, but you do end your thoughts in amen and hope Cas hears them.

“He wishes for you to shower,” Cas says and you let out a breath and play with Dean’s fingers for a moment.

Dean snorts and it’s kind of pathetic but you know he does it in the most delicate way possible because he’ll cause you pain if he doesn’t. More than once it’s made you cry to know you’ll never hear his laugh the way it’s meant to be ever again without it hurting. “Guess I do smell kind of rank. Not that you’re any better little brother.”

That last part is a lie because Dean helps you take a bath twice a day because warm water makes you feel less shivery and helps you sleep. But Dean doesn’t wash himself, hasn’t for a while, not properly, because it means leaving you alone and he hates that.

You see the realization in Dean’s eyes and you smile softly. You see him work out why you called Cas.

“I’ll be back in five minutes. No more, okay?”

One squeeze.

“Watch him for me; call me if he prays for Lucky Charms.” Dean slides out from behind you and you settle against the pillows. You miss him already and you look away so he doesn’t see and change his mind.

You wait until Dean looks over his shoulder one more time before he closes the bathroom door, not completely, just ajar, and then you shiver.

“Are you cold?” Cas asks you and you close your eyes for a few seconds and hold out your hand.

He understands just enough to take it; but he looks lost at the contact.

You squeeze his fingers twice and give him a small tug. He doesn’t get it.

He turns his head to the side. “You don’t feel cold, but your shivering would suggest otherwise.” He’s trying, that’s all you can ask for.

You push up just slightly and put your hands on his arms and he bends down all confused and you wrap your arms around his neck and lean into him. He’s different than Dean, than what you’re used to, but it’s nice and you hold on and he just freezes there.

“I-I…” Cas says and gingerly puts a hand on your shoulder. “Should I call Dean back? Do you require ‘Lucky Charms’?”

You laugh a little but it sounds like you’re crying because you kind of are.

“Are you upset because you are dying?”

You sniffle.

“Am I supposed to comfort you?”

You cling on just a little tighter to tell him he’s finally got it right.

“Uh…” his hand leaves your shoulder and pats you lightly on your back. “There there.”

You cry more and pray for him to shut the fuck up and just hold you.

He hears you and he envelopes his arms around you and he sits down on the edge of the bed and somehow without throwing up, you move and put your head in his lap.

You hold into the fabric of his black pants and he puts a hand on your head and repeats, “There there.” You’re glad he didn’t listen to the first part of your prayer.

The angel touch on your head is soothing and you feel better than you have in a long time.

You’re almost asleep when Dean comes back, his hair damp and his body smelling like your soap he bought for you to ease the aches in your head. He still bitches how much he hates lavender but he knows you love it because it reminds you of Jess so that’s why he used it.

Dean and the angel you’re clinging to swap places so smoothly you hardly feel the movements.

“Sam will be alright now Dean,” Cas tells him and you close your eyes because it doesn’t hurt anymore.

“Are you sure?” Dean asks him, and he sounds so small you want to be the one giving the comfort.

“I am sure.”

There are flaps in the air again and you don’t shiver this time.

“You’ll be okay Sammy, ssh, I gotcha,” Dean tells you. And you know it. You know somehow it will all be okay.

The End.


	2. Never Let Me Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys try to come to terms with Sam’s diagnosis. Prequel to I’m Not Giving Up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prequel to chapter one...enjoy!

You tap two pills out into your hand and you swallow them dry. You rub your forehead and then you put the pill bottle back into your pocket.

“Hey. Another headache?” Dean asks you and you startle just a fraction because you didn’t know he was there.

“Yeah,” you say, because you’ve popping them like crazy and it’s been over a month and it’s getting impossible to hide.

“You’ve been getting a hell of lot of those lately. You sure you’re alright?”

You keep your hands busy by zipping up your duffel and slinging it over your shoulder, along with your laptop bag. “Yeah, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” Except the weight of the bags make you stumble and Dean has to reach out and grab your elbow to stop you from tasting the moldy carpet.

“Whoa. Maybe you should sit down. I’ll grab the bags.” Dean holds on to you for longer than what’s necessary before he takes the bags from you and pushes you to sit on the edge of the bed.

You’re too tired to argue, so you sit and sink forward, setting your chin to rest on your hand and you rake the other one through your hair.

“Maybe we should go and get you checked out, like at a hospital. I mean, this ain’t normal. You’re popping those things like candy, and what the hell are they anyway?”

You let Dean nudge you from to bed and out to the car. You let him fuss his hands over your cheeks for a few moments before he closes your door for you and jogs around to the driver’s side.

“They won’t be able to help, Dean,” you tell him.

“So this is some of your psychic shit coming back to bite you on the ass? Is that it?” Dean asks, he sounds angry, he is angry, but it’s only because he’s scared. If only he'd realize finding out the truth would probably petrify him.

“No, Dean. It’s nothing like that. Nothing to do with any of that.” Well, it is sort of. You believe it’s some kind of karma. Even though Dean keeps on telling you you’ve paid your dues, you’ve been to hell for crying out loud. But that was by choice, so you don’t really think that counts.

“Then what the hell is it?” Dean is still angry. He’s only going to get angrier.

“Dean I-I…I have…its tumors,” you say in the quietest voice because it’s harder to say aloud than you thought it would be.

“Tumors?!” he shouts and you jump because it hurts your head. “Like cancer?”

“Yeah.”

You wait for the longest sixty three seconds of your life. 

“No. no, fuck this. We’re going to a hospital right the fuck now and they’re fixing you. They’re cutting that thing out of you.” Dean stamps his foot on the breaks and makes a U-turn in the road, leaving half of the tires burned to the tarmac. Cars blare their horns and you clamp your hands over your ears and bend forward and whimper.

“Sam? Sammy?”

You regain control over your breathing and sit up shakily back against the seat.

“Dean, they can’t do anything. I’ve tried I’ve seen the surgeons, I've seen the specialists. But it's everywhere. In my organs, my head. There’s no way.”

“No, fuck you.”

Dean drives in silence and the car finally finds its way to a back empty road and Dean kills the engine and jumps out.

“Cas! Castiel! Get your fucking nerdy angel ass down here! CAS!”

You push your car door open and get out. Dean is throwing his arms in the air and shouting at the sky and you feel a breeze in the air and turn around.

“Cas…” you say, and you give him an apologetic smile for your brother.

“Fix him,” Dean demands, pointing at you and pacing.

“What?”

“He’s got cancer or tumors or Christ, it doesn’t matter, just fix him.”

Your knees feel jittery as Castiel walks over to you and places a hand on the side of your head.

There’s a flicker through your body, like the tiniest electrical charge, and Dean grabs you and says, “Sammy?” so hopeful you want to cry for him.

Cas steps in before you need to say anything. “I-I don’t understand.”

“What?” Dean keeps his hands on your shoulders and turns an angry stare over his shoulder at the angel. “What the hell is wrong with your angel mojo?”

“Nothing. It simply isn’t working with Sam. I can’t heal him.”

Dean starts shouting again, angry at Castiel, angry at the world, he even shakes you for about five minutes and screams nonsense in your face. You block it all out and stand frozen because if Cas can’t heal you that means you’re not meant to be healed, this is how you’re meant to die. It’s so normal, you kind of hate ever wanting to be.

 

* * *

  
   
Dean refuses acceptance and drags you across the country. He tries witch doctors, real doctors, healers, priests. They all feel sorry for you and none of them can help. He even drags you to some magical wishing well in the back of some holy cave and makes you drink the billion year old water until you feel your organs start to drown.

The day you catch Dean researching black magic is the day you finally snap and you punch him in the face, hard enough that his lip bleeds and he’s thrown to the floor. You didn’t think you had it in you, you feel weirdly smug.

He jumps back up and tightens his fists in your shirt and shoves you back to the wall. You ready yourself for whatever he’s about to throw in your face, screaming words, a punch in return, whatever.

You’re not ready when he presses his lips to yours and you feel his hot tears on your face and he pulls away to rest his forehead on your shoulder.

“Sammy,” he says and you wrap your arms around him.

“It’s okay, Dean. It’s gonna be okay.”

He doesn’t say anything, he just cries and kisses you.

 

* * *

  
   
“Hey, Dean, I think I’ve found something,” you say and turn the laptop screen closer to him.

He comes closer and leans over your shoulder. “What, a healer?”

“No, a cabin,” you tell him patiently.

“What, like a magical cabin or something?” Dean would have laughed at that if he wasn’t so desperate.

“No, just a cabin. It’s about five hours drive, nice and secluded but not too far in the woods that we’d have to worry about wedigo’s and grizzlies or whatever.” You show him the bedrooms and the kitchen. It’s kind of small but huge compared to the space they’re used to sharing. “The lease is for six months, which I know is kind of optimistic, but it couldn’t hurt.”

Dean stands up to his full height and you look up at him. “What are you saying?” He looks like he knows but just doesn’t want to believe it.

“I don’t wanna die in a motel, Dean. I wanna go somewhere peaceful.”

He lets out a huff of tight air and turns his back to you. “For the last time Sam, you’re not dying.”

He can’t even say it to your face anymore because it’s so much of a lie.

“Dean, please. I won’t ask you to promise me anything after I’m gone. I just want you to do this for me while I’m still here. Please.”

He turns to you again and shakes his head. “If you think I’m letting you give up this easily…”

“Dean,” you take his hand. “There’s a fine line between hope and denial. We went past hope weeks ago. I’m not giving up, I’m just accepting what is.”

He pulls his hand from yours quick and angry. He grabs his jacket and he slams the door behind him.

You push the laptop away and you sink your head down to the table top. You pick at the knots in the wood and refuse to cry, telling yourself they’ll be plenty of time to do that later.

You don’t notice when Dean comes back and he cups the side of your face. His thumb brushes your cheek and he kisses you on the top of your head. “This is the place you wanna go?” he asks, looking at the laptop screen.

You nod numbly.

“Okay, let’s go,” he says. And you wonder why you don’t feel the relief you thought you would.

 

* * *

  
   
You’ve been here three weeks. You and Dean have found a rhythm, how to keep each other from going crazy without hunting. You hadn’t realized how plain life was without it. You had two years at Stanford without it, but then you had school to keep you occupied. Being sick wasn’t being occupied. Taking pain medication and throwing up and sleeping only took up so much of the day.

You play monopoly sometimes. Dean found the hundred year old board game in the back of a closet in one of the bedrooms and some of the pieces are missing, but it still works. And you cheat because Dean likes to think he knows the rules but he doesn’t and it’s his fault for being so smug and not reading the rules, so there.

One time you give the victory to Dean, you sneak him more money from the bank than what you’re technically supposed to, he doesn’t seem to notice and he gloats for the whole day when he wins. It’s nice to see him smile. He hasn’t in a while, not since you stopped talking. You still say the odd word, when you have to or when you start speaking before you realize you are. But you haven’t had an actual conversation with Dean in about five days because it requires too many muscles and it makes your chest flame with white hot agony.

You’re in the shower, the one place you don’t feel like hell, and you let the hot water beat down on your skin. Dean rushes in and yanks back the curtain, you hadn’t realized you’d fallen.

“Shit, Sammy, told you I should have helped.” Dean turns off the shower and then leans down to heave you up to rest against the back of the bath in a more comfortable fashion while he grabs the towel and wraps you in the warm fabric.

You tell him you didn’t feel dizzy when you first got in, but your words don’t make sense. They come out like drunken slurs and Dean turns pale but smiles and nods because he doesn’t understand you but he pretends everything’s okay.

You whimper and widen your eyes at him, he just shakes his head like it doesn’t matter. “It’s okay, Sammy. It’s okay,” he says and he lifts you out of the bath like he’s Superman and you’re Lois Lane and you laugh at that.

Dean asks you what’s so funny, you try to tell him but it doesn’t work. He lays you down on the bed you’ve started to share –because sleeping together helps the both of you- and he dries you off. He kisses you on the forehead and he rubs your hair with the towel in a gentle manner he hasn’t done since you were about five.

You try to talk again, tell him thanks, tell him it’s started to snow, tell him you love him, anything, but you lips don’t move right and it sounds like you’ve had a stroke.

You start to cry because no one said this would happen, none of the specialists you’ve seen said you’d lose your voice, or rather the wires that joined your brain to your voice.

Dean stops drying your hair and throws the towel on the floor to free his hands so he can place his palms on the sides of your face. You don’t want to look at him, for him to have to see the devastation in your eyes, but he refuses to let you look elsewhere and he stares at you with those strong eyes that tell you he’s in charge and he’s going to make everything better.

“Listen to me, we’ll deal okay? Just like we’ve done with everything our whole lives. This is nothing. We can handle this. It’s not like I don’t already know what you’re thinking when I look at you, I always know what you’re trying to tell me. And for the other things, we’ll come up with a system, squeeze my hand once for yes, twice for no. Okay?”

You find his wrist up near your neck and you squeeze twice and then let out another sob.

He pulls you close, to rest your ear on his chest and he rocks you. “Ssh, Sammy. It’s okay. don’t be scared, don’t be scared. I’m here. I’m not gonna leave you. I’m gonna take care of you. Sshh. Sshh. It’s okay baby.”

And Dean hasn’t called you baby since you were a baby. You mumble something else incoherent, and Dean says, “Bitch.” And carries on rocking.

The End.


End file.
